Why is the tenor oboe called an "English Horn" when it is neither English nor a horn?

serpa

The cor anglais, or English horn, is a double-reed woodwind instrument in the oboe family. The term cor anglais is French for English horn, but the instrument is neither from England nor a horn. The instrument is thought to have originated in Silesia about 1720, when a bulb bell was added to the oboe da caccia, a Baroque alto instrument of the oboe family, possibly by J. T. Weigel of Breslau. The two-keyed, open-belled straight tenor oboe (in French called "taille de hautbois", i.e., tenor oboe) and more especially the flare-belled oboe da caccia resembled the horns played by angels in religious icons of the Middle Ages and this gave rise in German-speaking central Europe to the Middle High German name engellisches Horn, meaning angelic horn. But engellisch also meant English in the vernacular of the time, and so the angelic horn became the English horn, a name which was retained, in the absence of any better alternative, for the curved, bulb-belled tenor oboe even after the oboe da caccia fell into disuse around 1760. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cor_anglais Jul 10 10, 2:17 AM